Blogs about the life of the real Jesus whose name was Yeshua. Learn about his life in Galilee, Samaria and Judea. Discover what his words and actions meant by viewing them through the eyes of his Jewish culture.

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Blessed are the SHALOM makers,
for they shall be called sons of God.[i] Who are the SHALOM
makers? TZEDAQAH (righteousness) is one of the most
important words in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Bible of Yeshua (the real Jewish
Jesus). The teachings of Yeshua make it very clear that TZEDAQAH is the most important word to him, too. It is absolutely essential
for us to accurately understand what it meant to him. TZEDAQAH not an abstract notion. It consists in doing what
is just and right in all relationships. Acts of TZEDAQAH result in social stability and ultimately in SHALOM (completeness and
wholeness). An
important part of TZEDAQAH is “almsgiving” -- the obligation to help the poor and needy. This was
considered by Jewish sages of all ages to be one of the cardinal commandments
-- almsgiving
is as important as all the other commandments combined.[ii] It is the almsgiving
aspect of TZEDAQAH that is the focus of the message and movement of Yeshua.
For many readers today, when they hear the w…

As
2014 comes to an end and we prepare for 2015, we are asking those who consider
the work of the Biblical Heritage Center important to help fund the work by
making a generous year-end donation. BHC
provides streams of information designed to help people understand their
biblical heritages – all of the things that have been linked to a biblical
text. We publish this information in our newsletter Discovering the Bible, BHC Google Group, BHC Blog, The Real Yeshua
Blog, From One Jesus to Many Christians Blog, BHC Bible Study Blog, Twitter,
Facebook pages, and the BHC website – and we do not charge people for it. Has
BHC’s information or have we made a difference in your life? If we have – please take time to make a generous donation
today – we want to be able to continue providing information for you and
help others too. For
information about how to make a donation or to make an online donation today go
to -- http://biblicalheritage.org/BHC/donate.htm
. If
you would like to set it up to a…

Did Jesus want to start a
new religion or was his goal to teach his fellow Jews how to be more faithful
to the Jewish Scriptures of the Jewish religion that he practiced? There
is plenty of evidence that Jesus regarded Torah (Jewish Scriptures) as binding
on him and his disciples—and that the early Jesus movement was making claims
that were plausible within some streams of Jewish thought, if not all of them.
In other words, Jesus was not trying to start a new religion–but claiming to
show the inner meaning of the Jewish tradition. (1) He appealed to higher principles
within the Torah and Torah purity laws. (2) He approved of the need for priestly
purification after leprosy. (3) He was not entirely at ease with
Gentiles and Samaritans. (4) He affirmed the sanctity of the Shabbat
(Sabbath). (5) He approved of paying tithes the Temple. (6) He wore tassels on his garments.

Today (October
3, 2014) at sundown is the beginning of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. It is
by far the most widely observed of Jewish holidays and fast days. Synagogues
are packed with families in Israel, as well as throughout the diaspora. It has been
the most important Jewish holiday throughout the centuries, going back into the
Second Temple Period -- the times of the
Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes and the Jesus Movement. A good way for
Christians to understand its importance is to compare it to what Easter means
to Christians. In this article I am going to focus on Yom Kippur during the
Late Second Temple Period, rather than the rituals now practiced in synagogues.
Keep in mind that what follows will reflect what Jesus and his original followers
experienced every year. There are hints in the Synoptic Gospels that the final
year of the life of Jesus may have coincided with the Year of Jubilees, but we
will look at what happened every year at the Temple. The fact that the highest
…

It’s one of the most famous lines in the Bible: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
(Leviticus 19:18). Impressive. Fascinating. Inspiring. Capable of a thousand
interpretations and raising 10,000 questions. A remarkable proposition coming
out of ancient Judah, which was embedded in the Near Eastern world of wars,
slavery, class and ethnic divisions and discriminations of all kinds. One interpretation of this verse that has been making the rounds
for years turns this grand idea on its head: The claim is that the verse means to love only one’s fellow Israelites
as oneself. Instead of being inclusive, it’s actually exclusive. Is there anything to this claim?

Both
Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity link Shavuot to specific historical events
that play important roles in establishing the legitimacy of their
movements. ● For Rabbinic Judaism it was their teaching that G-d gave two different
types of laws on Mt. Sinai, the Written Law and the Oral Law. ● For Christianity it was the descent of the Holy Spirit on the
congregation of believers gathered at the Temple in Jerusalem for
Shavuot. In the
New Testament, SHAVU’OT is called Pentecost (Ancient Greek: Πεντηκοστή [ἡμέρα], Pentēkostē
[hēmera], "the fiftieth [day]"). The name “Pentecost” reflects the 50 day period between
PESACH and SHAVU’OT. This year SHAVU’OT begins at sunset June 3rd and
continues to sunset June 5th. It is an important event that should
be understood by all who have a biblical heritage. Remember and give thanks for
the “crops” that provide for your needs today – those raised in fields by farmers and those earned by your labor at
your work. Read
the complete arti…

What
language did Jesus speak? Beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century a
mistaken notion – Jesus only knew and spoke Aramaic -- took hold that has
by-and-large continued to dominate both scholarly and popular opinion. Yet, the
results of a century of archaeological evidence have challenged this assumption
and brought a sea change of understanding regarding the linguistic environment
of first-century Judaea. The inscriptional and literary evidence reflects a
reality not unlike what we find with the Dead Sea Scrolls. Of the 700
non-biblical texts from the Qumran library, 120 are in Aramaic and 28 in Greek,
while 550 scrolls were written in Hebrew. Read the complete article at -- http://mosaicmagazine.com/picks/2014/05/judean-lingo/

Back
in the late 1980s, after participating in discussions that took place in our
Bible studies and meetings in which endless arguments and debates flared up
over the interpretations of verses or religious doctrines, I created the BHC
Bible Study Guideline. Our Belief
Systems must be large enough to include all the Facts;Open enough to
be tested; and,Flexible enough
to change when errors or new Facts are discovered! It
was amazing to witness the transformation that took place when the participants
focused on identifying or finding the facts and then comparing them to their
beliefs – especially when hardcore
fundamentalists were involved.It didn’t take
long for participants to realize that –people who
ignore the Facts, refuse to be tested, and cling to errors – are living lives
& making important decisions based on illusions – not truths –and that doesn’t
really make any sense! If
the BHC Bible Study Guideline has
benefited your life – or if its new to you, but you can see its value …

Then Yeshua said to the crowds and to the disciples,
“The scribes and
the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. Therefore, whatever they may tell you do and keep;
but do not do according to their works; because they say and do not.” (Matthew
23:1-3) The
three verses above contain clues that reveal a great deal about the real Yeshua
and his Jewish world. The first clue reveals a great deal about the two groups
that gathered to hear him – the crowds
and the disciples. The information recorded in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew,
Mark & Luke) also reveal a great deal about Yeshua as a rabbi. There can be little doubt that this was
how most of the Jewish people viewed Yeshua. However, it is important to
understand that being a rabbi before 70 CE in Judea and Galilee was very
different from being an American rabbi today. Pay close attention to the
underlined words below: There were hundreds and perhaps
thousands of such rabbis circulating in the land of Israel in Jesus’ day. These
rabbis did not he…

When
Yeshua was about 10 years old (6 CE), Judea
became part of a larger Roman province, called Iudaea, which was formed by combining Judea proper (biblical Judah)
with Samaria and Idumea (biblical Edom). Even though Iudaea is simply derived from the Latin
for Judea, many historians use it to
distinguish the Roman province from the previous territory and history. Iudaea province did not include Galilee, Gaulanitis (the Golan),
nor Peraeaor the Decapolis.[i]

Its
revenue was of little importance to the Roman treasury, but it controlled the
land and coastal sea routes to the
bread basket Egypt and was a border province against the Parthian Empire because of the
Jewish connections to Babylonia(since theBabylonian exile). Egypt seems to have had
grain surpluses often enough, so that they could be stored in state granaries
and even be exported. During Roman times the country was one of the bread
baskets of Rome. In Egypt, we
find barley cut at the end of six months, and wheat at the end of se…

If
you have read many of my blogs, you know how much I stress the importance of
knowing as much as you can about the culture of Second Temple Judaism when you
read the words of Jesus. It was his culture. But, there is another culture that
you should be aware of too -- if you rely
on English translations of the Bible – the culture of the translators. Here
is an example from Matthew 12:1 of the King
James Version: At that time
Jesus went on the sabbath day through
the corn; and his disciples were an hungred, and began to pluck the ears of corn, and to
eat.